Offices Held

Lt. Haddington fencible cav. 1794, capt. 1796.

Biography

Addressing the Haddingtonshire meeting called to vote a loyal address to the regent and condemn sedition, 26 Oct. 1819, Grant Suttie, the Tory Member since 1816, gave an assurance that ‘he should consider it his duty ... to attend in his place on the first day ... [of the emergency session] to support such measures as [ministers] might think most expedient in the present crisis’.2 At the general election of 1820 ‘the slow moving Suttie’ was challenged by Lord Tweeddale’s brother Lord John Hay*, who claimed to have the backing of the Liverpool ministry. Lord Melville, their Scottish manager, authorized Grant Suttie, who had appealed to him, to ‘contradict the assertion’. He defeated Hay by a single vote.3 Immediately afterwards, he renewed an application for patronage for two supporters.4 Although he continued to support ministers he was a lax attender.5 He voted against economies in revenue collection, 4 July 1820. He was in the government majorities on the Queen Caroline affair, 6 Feb., the revenue, 9 Mar., the additional malt duty, 3 Apr., and the disfranchisement of ordnance officials, 12 Apr. 1821. He voted against Catholic relief, 28 Feb. 1821. He took periods of leave to attend to private business, 19 Apr., and because of ill health, 14 May 1821. His only known vote in the 1822 session was against the relief of Catholic peers, 30 Apr. He divided with administration on the sinking fund, 13 Mar., and against inquiry into the prosecution of the Dublin Orange rioters, 22 Apr. 1823. He took six weeks’ sick leave, 14 Feb. 1825, but was present to vote against Catholic claims, 21 Apr., 10 May. He was in the minority for the Leith docks bill, 20 May 1825. He voted against reform of Edinburgh’s representation, 13 Apr. 1826. He is not known to have spoken in debate during his ten years as a Member, but he presented protectionist petitions, 12 May 1824, 28 Apr. 1825.6 He was in the minority against relaxation of the corn laws, 8 May 1826. At the dissolution the following month he abandoned the county to Hay.

On 4 June 1830 Charles Stuart Cochrane, a long-term visitor to Grant Suttie’s neighbourhood who was peeved not to have been invited to Balgone, denounced him to Sir Edward Troubridge* as ‘stupid and stingy’, and added that his unmarried daughter ‘is turned Methodist’ and was ‘ugly enough to take the veil’.7 At the general election that summer Grant Suttie’s only son and successor George (1797-1878) stood for the county but lost to Hay, who had the support of the Wellington ministry. Grant Suttie, who initiated a major reconstruction of the mansion house at Prestongrange, died in May 1836.8

Ref Volumes: 1820-1832

Author: David R. Fisher

Notes

1.Edinburgh Mar. Reg. (Scottish Rec. Soc. liii), 767. In both Burke PB and CB she is named as Katherine Isabella.